Burya the Hero Ivan the Cow's Son

The name of Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev stands alongside the names of outstanding Russian scientists of the 19th century. His fruitful work was distinguished by remarkable versatility. He proved himself as a thoughtful historian of culture and a researcher of Russian literature, a jurist, an ethnographer, a folklorist, and a journalist. A special merit belongs to Afanasyev as the compiler of a collection of folk Russian tales. The Afanasyev collection (8 issues, 1855–1863) is an outstanding edition not only for Russian but also for world folkloristics. Appearing as the first—and at the time the only—compendium of Russian fairy tales in which they were presented alongside Ukrainian and Belarusian ones, the collection laid the foundation for the scholarly gathering and study of the East Slavic fairy tale and became truly a people’s book, playing an exceptional role in the upbringing of more than one generation of readers.